When tea met sugar, they formed a power couple that altered the course of history. It was a marriage shaped by fashion, health fads and global economics. And it doomed millions of Africans to slavery.
Legend has it that a Chinese emperor first discovered tea more than 4,700 years ago. As the culture surrounding tea has changed through the centuries, so, too, have the tools we use to drink it.
Researchers studying the Blue Zones, five regions around the world with lots of centenarians, have come up with this rule: "Drink coffee for breakfast, tea in the afternoon, wine at 5 p.m."
Yak butter tea is often referred to as the national drink of Tibet. It's been consumed in the Himalayas for centuries and helped inspire the Bulletproof Coffee craze in the U.S.
One of China's five sacred mountains, Mount Hua is a lotus-shaped range of peaks and hub of Taoism. It has many harrowing paths to well-being — and to tea.
Over 800 years before tea was known in the West, a Chinese master penned the The Classic of Tea. In it, he blends the practical with the spiritual and emphasizes rituals from cultivation to drinking.